lundi 20 août 2012

Land Grab compromises Food Sovereignty in Southern Africa

The ongoing rush to African land by national and transnational
investors was a dominant theme at the People’s Dialogue and Summit being
held at Mumemo in Maputo.

From Mozambique to Swaziland, passing through
Angola, South Africa, Malawi, Namibia and Lesotho, the voices and
experiences of the people have expressed mounting concerns about the
increasing enclosure of land to promote large-scale investments that
seriously affect the fundamental rights of the local population and
compromise efforts to achieve food sovereignty.

‘Everyone knows the problem of the land. It is a
complete invasion’, says Renaldo Chingore, a leader of the National
farmers Union in Mozambique, UNAC.

Three special commissions were organized aimed at a
deeper understanding of the impacts of land grabbing, sharing personal
experiences, discussing alternatives and recommending a common strategy
to defend land and water as fundamentals of life.

By listening to the people, the land problem, which
had already been presented as an extremely serious matter in the
speeches made during the plenary sessions was characterised as a
phenomenon with potential to rapidly expand all over the continent, and
to impact negatively on the present and future of Africa.

In particular, common concerns were expressed about the role of the
governments in utilizing laws and the smokescreen of legality to enclose
thousands of hectares of land and water resources, evict entire
communities, and deprive traditional property rights of any effective
recognition. This was possible because governments are taking advantage
of the scarce knowledge of the law by the people, who are not informed
about their rights and prevented from expressing their consent, in open
violation of national and international obligations contracted by the
SADC members.

Many participants reported that there were efforts from investors to
obtain the consent of local leaders by making promises and ‘putting
sugar in their mouths’, but there were also other several cases of
direct action by government Ministers, who are ‘treating the land as
their own property’.

‘We only know what is happening to our land when
there is a conflict’, says Herbert Murombo ‘as this means that means it
will be too late for us to intervene’.

In some circumstances, as stressed by Alice Kachere
who said, ‘Fisher folk realize that they cannot access the sea or the
rivers when they are faced with newly built fences’, which seriously
affects the self-sustaining capacity of communities.

The delegates demanded an immediate moratorium on
all large-scale agricultural investments such as the Pro-Savana project
in Mozambique. This must be accompanied by precise political responses,
such as the intensification and facilitation of the process of
recognition of common land titles in favour of the communities; the
dissemination of information on land related laws and of people’s rights
in local languages; the respect of the right to free, prior and
informed consent of affected communities; the direct involvement of
peasants in the definition of agricultural policies based on
sustainability, food sovereignty and agroecology; the realization of a
seeds’ bank to preserve biodiversity; a regional ban on GMOs and the
assumption of the duty to inform consumers about their presence in the
food by clear labelling, and the improved access to local infrastructure
capable of stocking water and cereals for the needs of peasants and
populations.